According to military sources, Muslim extremists have threatened to execute two rubber plantation workers they seized last week in the southern Philippines, unless ransom is paid. The rebels, belonging to the Abu Sayyaf group, abducted the two in a village in the island province of Basilan.

The rebels were demanding $8,100 for the release of one of the captives. It was unclear how much ransom was being asked for the other, or whether any deadline for payment was imposed.

The Abu Sayyaf is the smaller but more violent of two Muslim guerrilla groups still fighting the Philippine government. Battle casualties and infighting have substantially weakened the Abu Sayyaf. It resorts to ransom kidnappings and other forms of banditry to finance its operations, military officials say.
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The funeral of a bombing victim became a protest against terrorism, as more than a thousand people took to the streets in Dipolog City in the southern Philippines. Dominic Acupiado, a teen-age disk jockey, was killed by a bus bomb on November 18, while traveling from Dipolog to Cagayan de Oro City. The explosion came only an hour after another bus bomb in a terminal in Dipolog killed a child and injured 13 people. Acupiado's killing sparked a wave of popular protest against the recurrent terrorist attacks on passenger buses in the southern cities.

The wave of bombings have been linked to suspected Muslim rebels. Local security authorities accuse the rebels of planting the bombs as part of an extortion campaign against the bus companies. Dipolog and other cities in the Zamboanga del Norte province have borne the brunt of terrorist activity. Early this month, bombs exploded on two buses in the region, killing two passengers and injuring more than 60 others.

There are several Muslim groups fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. The larger group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), with an estimated 10,000 fighters, has been holding peace talks with the Government after another Muslim guerrilla faction, the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace treaty in 1996. So far, the MILF talks have failed to progress beyond discussions of a ceasefire, and clashes between the group and southern security forces continue.

However, local sources blame the spate of bus bombings, as well as a number of kidnappings for ransom on the Abu Sayyaf group, which split from the Moro National Liberation Front in 1991. Abu Sayyaf is the smaller but more violent of the two Muslim groups still fighting the Philippine government. They are believed to have ties to a number of Islamic fundamentalist organizations, including Osama bin Ladin's al-Qaida.

Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, the founder and leader of the Abu Sayyaf group (ASG), was found dead after a police raid on Basilan Island in the southern Philippines. Janjalani was the country's most wanted man, with a price of over $37,000 on his head.

Body "positively identified"

Janjalani was killed late Friday in the village of Lamitan. The raid was apparently initiated by the police on a tip that Janjalani was in the village. A police officer and two other Abu Sayyaf members were also killed. Three other police officers were wounded and two were reported missing. In the past, there have been a number of spurious reports of Janjalani's death. However, police said that this time there is no doubt. Janjalani's body was identified both by his relatives and by Basilan Governor Wahab Akbar.

Abu Sayyaf on the decline

The Abu Sayyaf group, whose name means "Father of the Executioner," split from the Moro National Liberation Front in 1991. The group is the smaller but more violent of the two Muslim groups still fighting the Philippine government. The group's members are Islamic radicals, who wish to set up an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Although based almost exclusively in the southern islands, they are believed to have ties to a number of Islamic fundamentalist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Ladin's al-Qaida and Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of organizing the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. Janjalani, like Osama bin Ladin, was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

Battle casualties and infighting have substantially weakened the group. In the past it has financed its operations through robbery and ransom kidnappings. The Abu Sayyaf's first major terrorist attack was a grenade attack in 1991, in which two foreign women were killed. The ASG’s first large-scale operation was in April 1995, when they raided the Christian village of Ipil in Mindanao, killing 52 people. Local security sources have also blamed the group for a recent spate of bus bombings, as well as the 1993 bombing of a cathedral in Davao City, in which seven people were killed.

A grenade lobbed into a crowd killed ten people on the southern Philippine island of Jolo on Saturday night. The crowd had gathered to watch firefighters put out a blaze in a neighborhood supermarket when one or more grenades were tossed into a group of soldiers and civilians. The attack is thought to have been carried out by Abu Sayyaf members in a bid to avenge their leader Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, killed last month in a skirmish with security forces.

Chaos of "friendly fire" erupted from grenade attack

Sulu Governor Munib Estino said a "misencounter" occurred when marine troopers fired warning shots in a bid to control the crowd. The policemen hurrying to the site of the grenade attack thought the shots were fired by the terrorists, and fired back, triggering a brief exchange of gunfire.

A total of 74 people were injured in the attack and the ensuing gunfire, some seriously. The dead were all civilians, while the injured included eight marines and two policemen.

An investigation is now underway to determine whether the supermarket blaze was part of the attack, why security forces opened fire, and whether the terrorists also opened fire. Jolo Island, in Sulu province is an area in which Abu Sayyaf has been increasingly active; last month suspected members of the group tossed a grenade into a crowded shopping center, wounding more than 60 people.

Police and military on alert

Sulu police chief Isah Hassan said his office had beefed up security in the province in response to the group's threats to attack government and business targets to avenge the death of its leader. However, security forces are at present unable to take effective action against Abu Sayyaf, since the present attack comes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Abu Sayyaf has been hard hit by recent government offensives. On New Year's Eve government troops in the Sulu town of Indanan killed Suwaib Eman Sahibul, another top Abu Sayyaf leader. Sahibul was linked to the abduction of three foreigners last September. The hostages, two Chinese and a Malaysian, were rescued just before Christmas.

New Abu Sayyaf leader chosen

Both the military and the police had been on the alert for terrorist action, after it was learned the about 80 armed members of Abu Sayyaf had entered the province of Basilan in the wake of the death of Janjalani. Intelligence reports alleged that the group was on the brink of breaking up amid infighting over who should succeed the fallen leader. However apparently a new leader has already been chosen, at least of the main Abu Sayyaf cell. A man known as Gapur has been named the new leader of the Abu Sayyaf group now operating in Basilan. According to intelligence reports, Gapur was to take control of the whole Abu Sayyaf group and its terrorist operations in Basilan, Zamboanga and Sulu. Abu Sayyaf consists of about 400 young Muslim radicals blamed by the military for a series of bombings and killings in the region in recent years.

Kuala Lumpur - Two American tourists who escaped being taken hostage on a tropical resort island off Borneo arrived in Malaysia's capital on Monday saying they were tired after their ordeal.

James Murphy and his wife, Mary, arrived at the capital's main airport from the eastern state of Sabah where six heavily armed pirates late on Sunday seized 20 hostages, including 10 foreign tourists, and headed out to sea.

The couple from Rochester, New York, were initially chosen from among tourists at a diving resort on Sipadan Island to be among the hostages, but they managed to get away, a witness said.

Asked how they felt, James Murphy said waiting at Kuala Lumpur's airport: "Tired."

He said he and his wife, both 51, would issue a statement after the hostages are freed.

Malaysian authorities said earlier on Monday that they knew where the captors had taken the hostages.

Officials in Manila said they believed the captors were Filipinos, perhaps Muslim rebels, and might be taking the hostages to the Philippines.

Murphy, who works at Kodak in Rochester, was asked how he and his wife had managed to escape. "I'd rather not discuss that," he said.

But marine photographer Danny Chin, who was at the resort when the kidnappings took place, said Murphy had refused to go along with the captors because his wife cannot swim.

The captors had ordered the hostages to swim from the resort restaurant, built above the water, to boats which they used to speed away from the island.

After Murphy told the captors that they could kill him if they pleased, the hostage-takers ignored him, giving the Murphys a chance to run into nearby bushes where they hid for the night until police appeared at the resort in the morning, Chin said.

Murphy said it was the third time he had come to Malaysia but the first visit to Sipadan, one of the world's best known diving spots with an abundance of water life around the tiny coral island.

He said his family, including three children, did not know that they had escaped from being taken hostage.

The couple said they planned to spend three days in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The names of the South Africans snatched with 18 other people from the Malaysian resort near the southern Philippines are Karel and Monique Strydom from Johannesburg.

They are both 36 years old.

Department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said that the couple's family had been informed about the kidnapping on Monday afternoon.

Mamoepa said South Africa's High Commission in Malaysia was involved in discussions with Interpol.

"The government is doing everything in its power to secure the release of these two people," he said.

Mamoepa confirmed that the kidnapping is believed to be political.

"Someone from the department is on the spot to liaise (with the Malaysian government)," Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said at Johannesburg International Airport where she was waiting to meet Chinese president Jiang Zemin, who is due to start a state visit to South Africa on Monday. - Sapa
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Muslim rebels in the Philippines who are seeking the release of militants jailed in the World Trade Center bombing case claimed responsibility Tuesday for the Malaysian kidnapping. Philippine officials, who were helping coordinate the rescue attempt, quickly expressed skepticism over the statement.

An American couple escaped the Sunday evening attack in Malaysia by refusing to swim out to the kidnappers' boats and then hiding overnight in nearby bushes.

Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak said Monday that an air-and-sea search team had determined where the hostages -- half of whom were foreign tourists -- were being held, following their abduction on the lush Sipadan Island in eastern Malaysia. Najib did not give details.

But Semporna police chief Sulaiman Junaidi said Tuesday that authorities had yet to pinpoint the abductor's hideout. ''We're tracking them down,'' he added.

Nafir Sakaran, a state Cabinet minister at police headquarters in Semporna, told The Associated Press Tuesday that marine police and navy reinforcements have been brought in. ''The military has been called out. We have soldiers who are riding on patrol boats, working with the Philippine navy.''

The attack began when six masked gunmen, carrying AK-47s and a rocket launcher and speaking a Philippine language, grabbed tourists and workers and confiscated their cash and jewelry, Norian said. A local marine photographer said one of the attackers identified himself as a police officer and told him to give up his watch and cellular phone.

''At first I thought he was joking ... but when I refused to obey his orders, he held a gun to my head,'' Danny Chin, 48, was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama.

Chin said he hid in the woods while the kidnappers ransacked the resort.

The attackers then forced their hostages to swim a distance to two fishing boats, which then sped away and appeared to be heading into Philippine waters, officials said.

Two of the captives -- James and Mary Murphy, both 51, of Rochester, N.Y. -- managed to escape. Eyewitnesses said Mary Murphy didn't know how to swim, and her husband told the assailants they'd have to shoot him if they forced her into the water. The kidnappers apparently let them go, and the American couple ran into the bushes and hid until dawn.

The Murphys, who have been living in Australia the past two years, arrived in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, on Monday evening but said they didn't want to talk to the media extensively until the hostages are released. '

'I don't want to do anything that would endanger their lives,'' James Murphy told The Associated Press at the airport. ''We haven't slept yet, but yes, we are fine.''

The hostages forced onto the fishing boats included two French tourists, three Germans, two South Africans, two Finns and one Lebanese, as well as a Filipino worker and nine Malaysians, authorities said.

In Basilan, Philippines, Philippine troops shelled rebel camps again Tuesday as soldiers battled their way up a mountain where Abu Sayyaf rebels were holding 27 Filipinos captive.

''Our group is behind the abduction of the foreigners (in Malaysia) and there are still a lot of surprises for the government if they won't listen to us,'' Abu Ahmad, spokesman for the Philippine rebel group Abu Sayyaf, said in an interview over local radio station DXRZ.

The rebels have demanded the freedom of three Arab terrorist suspects in U.S. jails, including Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, accused of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks.

Philippine Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said the military is still determining whether the Abu Sayyaf, which is fighting for an independent Islamic state in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, is actually responsible for the Malaysian abductions.

''We don't just jump and believe the Abu Sayyaf immediately. We will verify and confirm this,'' he told The Associated Press.

Prior to the rebel announcement, Col. Ernesto de Guzman, chief of staff of the Philippine military's Southern Command, said officials were trying to determine whether there was a connection with the hostage situation on the southern Philippine island of Basilan, about 275 miles northeast of Semporna, the port from which tourists take boats for Sipadan.

Since 1969, Malaysia and Indonesia have both claimed sovereignty over Sipadan and Ligitan, another Celebes Sea island. But there were no indications that the hostage-takers were involved in the territorial dispute.

Chong Kah Kiat, tourism minister for Sabah, said he was concerned that the attack would scare off the 400,000 tourists who visit Sabah beaches and rain forests every year.

Meanwhile, at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Mary Murphy was close to tears. ''We really need to talk to our children,'' she told the AP.

''We really want to get to the phone.''

Her husband, an executive for Eastman Kodak Co. in Sydney, Australia, said they had not slept since Sunday night but were otherwise fine.

''She's got lots of bites from sleeping in the bushes, a lot of sand fleas,'' he said, pointing to his wife's legs, which were covered with a rash of insect bites.

As cameras flashed around them, Mary Murphy, wearing plaid Bermuda shorts, said all she wanted was "a good night's sleep and a hot shower."

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ Ex-Vietnam veteran James Murphy said today he feels even more of "a sense of relief" two days after he and his wife escaped gunmen who seized 20 hostages from an exclusive diving resort.

After a fearful first night of hiding in bushes on Sipadan Island, James Murphy and Mary Murphy, both 51, from Rochester, N.Y., rested in a luxury hotel in the Malaysian capital.

"We're feeling good, real good,'' he told The Associated Press. "We got somewhat of a good night's sleep. We're just going to take it easy today."

The Murphy's holiday at one of the world's top diving resorts ended in terror Sunday night around dinner time, when six armed assailants stormed its white-sand beaches, abducting 20 people, including 10 foreign tourists. All the hostages were still missing today.

"I was there to scuba dive,'' Mr. Murphy said. ``It could happen to anybody on vacation.''

Muslim rebels who have been holding 27 Filipinos hostage for a month on the southern Philippine island of Basilan said today they might be responsible for the abductions. Basilan and Sipadan share the Celebes sea.

The rebels, who said last week they had beheaded two male hostages, have demanded freedom for three Arab terrorists held in the United States, including the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

"We're even luckier than we first thought," Murphy said. "Talk about a sense of relief. If they would have taken us, we'd have been the only American hostages.

He paused, then said, "That would have been really scary"'

Witnesses said the kidnappers forced the hostages to swim to awaiting boats. They said Mary Murphy couldn't swim and when the kidnappers tried to force her, her husband said they'd have to shoot him if they forced her into the water.

When the hostage-takers turned around, the Murphys ran into the bushes and hid until dawn, witnesses said.

When asked Monday if this was an accurate account, the Murphys smiled but would not elaborate.

They said today they were reluctant to talk publicly about their ordeal.

"We don't want our comments to overshadow anything that's going on with the situation,'' said Murphy, an executive for Eastman Kodak Co.

The couple said they would remain in Kuala Lumpur for a few days in case Malaysian authorities needed them and then return to Sydney, where they have lived for the past two years.

The couple spent today on the phone with their children in Boston, Rochester and Australia. Their 26-year-old son James, contacted in Sydney by the Australian Associated Press, said he wasn't surprised his parents had orchestrated such a bold escape.

Masked gunmen abducted 20 people, most of them foreign tourists, from a resort island off Malaysia's Borneo coast Sunday night and spirited them away on fishing boats in a bizarre kidnapping for which Islamic insurgents in the southern Philippines claimed credit.

Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said an air and sea search operation located the boats carrying the captive tourists last night, and that the hostages apparently had not been harmed.

His Philippine counterpart, Orlando Mercado, said the gunmen and their hostages appeared to be sailing for the southern Philippines, the scene of a secessionist guerrilla war being waged by the Abu Sayyaf movement, and that the Philippine Navy will coordinate with the Malaysian Navy to try to intercept the boats and free the captives.

The Muslim rebels, who are seeking the release of militants jailed in the World Trade Center bombing case, claimed responsibility today for the Malaysian kidnapping. But Philippine officials expressed skepticism and said they were seeking further corroboration.

The half-dozen attackers, who were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, burst into the restaurant of a resort on Malaysia's Sipadan Island on Sunday night, taking cash and jewelry from the hostages before forcing them to swim to two fishing boats anchored offshore, Malaysian Police Inspector General Norian Mai told reporters.

Two Americans were part of the tourist group -- composed mostly of scuba divers -- but they escaped and hid in nearby woods as the others were herded to the boats and carried away into the night on the Celebes Sea.

Malaysian officials said the hostages included nine Malaysians, three Germans, two Frenchmen, two South Africans, two Finns, one Lebanese and one Filipino who was employed at the resort.

A local underwater photographer, Danny Chin, 48, told the Malaysian national news agency Bernama that one of the attackers had pretended to be a police officer and ordered him to hand over his watch and cell phone.

"At first, I thought he was joking . . . but when I refused to obey his orders, he held a gun to my head," the agency quoted Chin as saying.

The two Americans who escaped, James and Mary Murphy, of Rochester, N.Y., did so after James Murphy protested that his wife could not swim, according to news reports. When the attackers' attention was diverted, the couple, both 51, ran into the woods and hid until dawn.

The Murphys arrived last night in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, but declined to discuss the incident until the hostages are freed.

"I don't want to do anything that would endanger their lives," said James Murphy, an executive for Eastman Kodak Co. in Sydney, Australia. "We haven't slept yet, but yes, we are fine."

Sipadan, whose crystal-clear waters and stunning reefs make it one of the world's pre-eminent diving areas, is the site of several resorts that cater to professional divers and tourists who visit to admire and photograph marine life.

The island, a few miles off the town of Semporna on the southeastern coast of Sabah state, lies less than 100 miles southwest of the Philippines' Sulu Archipelago and only 250 miles from Mindanao, a southern Philippines region that has long been a battleground for Islamic extremists.
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Officials in the Philippines announced that the 21 hostages kidnapped from a Malaysian resort are being held by Muslim rebels on Jolo island in the southern Philippines.

Hostages include nationals of seven countries

The hostages--who included tourists, hotel workers, and wildlife officials--were seized from a Malaysian beach resort off Borneo last Sunday night by heavily armed gunmen. The kidnappers forced the hostages to swim to two boats moored at the wharf. Witnesses said that the entire affair was over in minutes.

The hostages include three Germans, two French, two South Africans, two Finns, one Lebanese and a Filipino working at the Sipadan Island Resort. Nine Malaysians working on the island were also seized.

Two American tourists--James and Mary Murphy--escaped. Witnesses said Mary Murphy did not know how to swim, and her husband told the gunmen they would have to shoot him if they forced her into the water. The kidnappers apparently let them go, and the American couple ran into the bushes and hid until dawn.

Abu Sayyaf connection

Philippine Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told a news conference the hostages were being held near Talipao town on the island of Jolo, 600 miles south of Manila in the Sulu Sea.

Although he said that the hostage-takers were linked to Abu Sayyaf, Mercado said he did not know if the kidnapping was related to a military assault on an Abu Sayyaf base on nearby Basilan island, where the fundamentalist group has been holding 27 Filipino hostages, mostly schoolchildren, for over a month.

The militants have demanded the release from an American jail of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, accused of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks. They also demanded the release of two Abu Sayyaf members held in a Basilan jail. The demands were rejected by the governments of the Philippines and the United States.

An Abu Sayyaf spokesman, Abu Ahmad claimed in a radio interview that the kidnapping was carried out by Abu Sayyaf. "Our group is behind the abduction of the foreigners [in Malaysia] and there are still a lot of surprises for the government if they won't listen to us," he told Philippine radio station DXRZ. However a few hours later Ahmad said that he would neither confirm nor deny his group was involved.

Ransom demands

Mercado said that the kidnapping was orchestrated by three criminals with links to Abu Sayyaf. "We don't know for sure but these personalities are a mixture of Abu Sayyaf and former (rebels) and are known for kidnap-for-ransom." Mercado said this was the same group that kidnapped two Hong Kong nationals and a Malaysian in 1998 and held them for 15 weeks. The captives were released unharmed after payment of an unknown amount in ransom.

According to Reuters, the nephew of a Filipina hostage said the kidnappers were demanding 10 million Malaysian ringgit ($2.6 million) to be paid by the owners of the Sipadan beach resort. Officials in Manila said the kidnappers had made seven demands, including a ransom of 30 million pesos ($720,000).

Ransom kidnappings are a local industry

Philippines authorities said that the choice of appropriate response to the kidnapping would likely be left up to the military. A military option, they said, could not be ruled out. Nur Misuari, governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and a former rebel leader has been assigned to negotiate with the kidnappers.

Jolo island is one of hundreds of small islands in the Sulu archipelago. The islands are largely inhabited by Muslims, mainly belonging to the Tausog group. Jolo island, for centuries a favorite haunt for pirates, has more recently become a base for Muslim rebels from both of the groups fighting the Philippines government. The island's rugged, mountainous terrain make it a challenging target for a military assault.

Nearly 30 years of armed conflict have left the economy of the region in tatters. Ransom kidnappings have become a kind of cottage industry in the Muslim-populated southwestern Philippines. The kidnapping industry involves virtually the entire population, with large numbers of men hiring on as armed guards, lookouts and legmen.

According to the AFP gunmen recently went around town to hire lookouts and armed recruits, with daily wage offers of 3,000 to 5,000 pesos (73-121 dollars)--equivalent to a month's wages in local terms.

On October 18, 2003, President George W. Bush stood before the Philippine Congress and declared that the Philippines and the United States are "bound by the strongest ties that two nations can share." The statement was not just the sort of rhetorical flourish that often dominates a U.S. leader's address to a former colony. The long-simmering Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines has been identified as a critical battle in the war on terror, and the Philippine government has become a key U.S. ally as a result.

In January 2002, 600 U.S. soldiers were sent to support Philippine forces fighting the Abu Sayyaf, a loosely organized gang of Islamist bandits entrenched on the southern Philippine islands of Basilan and Jolo. The operation was a failure: a year after the deployment, U.S. forces had withdrawn with their enemy still in place and the Philippine government suffering from a damaging scandal. Since then, the focus of U.S. assistance has changed: military and development aid to the Philippines has soared to well more than $100 million a year, and President Bush has urged the Philippine Congress to increase its own military appropriations to meet the separatist Muslim threat.

The need for action is real. The chaos and criminality sown by the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have created an environment ripe for exploitation by international terrorists, and Philippine government attempts to address the situation have been ineffective. But Washington's flawed understanding of the problem has hamstrung the mission and lowered its chances of success. Policymakers treat the conflict as a case of a violent Muslim population terrorizing its Christian neighbors under the influence of radical Islamist agitators. They emphasize reports of al Qaeda support and the presence of operatives from the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah network. They have failed to recognize, however, that terrorists did not create the conflict in the southern Philippines and do not control any of the combatants. The troubles are rooted in specific local issues that predate the war on terror by centuries, and neither soldiers nor money will end Mindanao's war.

MINDANAO'S WAR

Conflict has plagued the southern islands of the Philippines since 1566, when Spanish forces, fresh from centuries of war against Muslims in their homeland, found their traditional enemies in their new colony. Muslim ferocity and Spanish torpor combined to leave Mindanao unconquered, but the reflexive Spanish hostility toward Muslims was passed on to Christian Filipinos, and Muslims responded in kind. American forces finally subdued the Muslim chieftains in the early twentieth century but ruled Mindanao as an entity separate from the rest of the Philippines. The divided populations were joined only with Philippine independence in 1946.

Ethnic tensions plagued this union from the start. Separatist sentiment flared into conflict in 1970, after years of government-sponsored Christian migration into Muslim regions, and Libya stepped in to support the Muslims, serving as midwife to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). As fighting ground to a bloody stalemate, Muslim leaders urged Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos to negotiate with Muslim rebels. Dependent on oil imported from Muslim countries, Marcos complied, and a peace agreement was concluded in 1976.

With the truce signed, Marcos left control of Mindanao to his subordinates, who looked after their own interests. Military forces in the area were virtually abandoned. Soldiers went into business, by themselves or with local political overlords. Former rebels took to crime, often receiving official protection in return for a cut of the profits. Manila's influence over Mindanao dwindled, and the style of governance embraced by the region's feudal lords quickly inspired a new round of rebellion.

In 1978, disgruntled MNLF members under the leadership of a Cairo-educated cleric named Hashim Salamat formed the milf. Salamat's strong religious identity and non-negotiable goal of an independent Islamic state proved more compelling than the MNLF 's Libyan-influenced socialism. The MILF quickly grew to include some 12,000 armed men -- concentrated mostly on Mindanao -- and claimed the mantle of Muslim resistance. Since then, despite two decades of warfare and negotiation, government forces have been unable to establish lasting control over MILF territory.

In 1990, contact between a young militant named Abdurajak Janjalani and Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed al-Khalifa led to the founding of another Muslim separatist group, the Abu Sayyaf, which quickly entrenched itself on the islands of Basilan and Jolo, west of Mindanao. The new group proclaimed a radical Islamist ideology and gained early notoriety with grenade attacks on Christian targets. Before long, however, it had diverted its energy to ransom-driven kidnapping. Soon, members of the criminal underground had emerged in key leadership positions, and the group's Islamic identity was subordinated to the quest for profit. After Janjalani's death in 1998, the Abu Sayyaf deteriorated into a loose federation of bandit chiefs bound mainly by convenience.

Despite the Islamist foundations of both the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, the extent of their links to global terrorism is debatable. MILF fighters have trained in Pakistan and with the Taliban and have had contact with members of al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. There is no evidence, however, that the MILF is directed by outside powers, and its limited arsenal corroborates this independence. Its new chief, Al-Haj Murad, who took over after Salamat's death earlier this year, is not considered a religious extremist. The Abu Sayyaf similarly shows no sign of significant outside support, despite having initially received aid and military training from foreign terrorists. (Widely circulated rumors of Iraqi funding spring from a single, unreliable source.) The group's most important outside connections are not terrorists at all; they are police, military, and government officials, who sell firepower and immunity to the brigands for a share of the spoils.

COLLISION COURSE

In March 2000, the Abu Sayyaf took 51 hostages on Basilan. A month later they kidnapped 30 more, of varied nationalities, from a Malaysian resort. The tactic proved lucrative: they exchanged hostages for large ransom payments, including $25 million from the Libyan government. As cash flooded the impoverished islands, men flocked to the group, attracted less by ideology than by the promise of large guns and fast boats. In May 2001, an Abu Sayyaf group seized several Filipinos and two American missionaries in another resort raid, setting the group on a collision course with Washington.

In the first months of this minor crisis, the Bush administration viewed the hostages as victims of crime. There was no talk of terrorism and little enthusiasm for military action, or even for restoring much military aid to the Philippines. After September 11, however, the United States rapidly reversed its position. Manila was suddenly reclassified as a staunch ally in the war on terror, and Washington rediscovered the ties between Mindanao and jihad. The Abu Sayyaf was tagged a terrorist organization, and in January 2002, 600 U.S. soldiers joined 4,000 Filipino troops on Basilan. Philippine laws restrict foreign troops to training roles, but the Americans, though designated as trainers, entered hostile territory with explicit authorization to fire if attacked.

Critics immediately disputed Washington's claim that the Abu Sayyaf was a terrorist organization, rather than a criminal syndicate. They argued that the MILF posed a far greater danger and that the size of the operation against the Abu Sayyaf was disproportionate to the threat. Many Filipinos suggested that the exercise was intended to secure a U.S. base in Mindanao or prepare for a later move against the MILF and the communist New People's Army.

Although U.S. soldiers gained local approval by building roads and bridges, the military outcome was ambiguous at best. The American hostages turned up elsewhere, discovered by Filipino troops unconnected to the operation; their captors had apparently slipped through a U.S. Navy cordon. One hostage was killed during the rescue. The operation halted the Abu Sayyaf's dramatic expansion, but most of the group's leaders and troops escaped.

In February 2003, American and Filipino officials announced another, larger exercise directed at the Abu Sayyaf presence on Jolo. As forces prepared for the operation, an unnamed Pentagon spokesman declared, "This is an actual combined operation, and it is U.S. forces accompanying and actively participating in Philippine-led offensive operations." The next day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer added, "The Armed Forces of the Philippines will conduct operations supported by U.S. troops against the Abu Sayyaf group. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has the lead, and U.S. forces will assist them." In the Philippines, this was interpreted as a declaration that U.S. troops would be illegally deployed in a combat role. The subsequent outcry forced the cancellation of the exercise.

Days later, a bomb exploded outside an airport in the primarily Christian city of Davao. The next month, another explosion hit a crowded Davao wharf, and just before Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo left for a visit to Washington in May a blast in the Christian town of Koronadal raised the combined toll to 50 dead and 200 wounded. Arroyo has blamed the recent bombings on the MILF, without citing any convincing evidence. The MILF, which had not previously designed attacks to maximize civilian casualties, has denied involvement.

Arroyo returned from Washington with a substantial aid package, but the MILF has not been added to Washington's list of terrorist organizations, despite suggestions from Manila officials that the designation was "inevitable." Negotiations brokered by Malaysia and encouraged by the United States are in progress. The focus of turmoil has since moved to Manila, underscoring the connection between Mindanao's conflict and the fragile state of Philippine democracy. In July, convicted Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi and two Abu Sayyaf members walked out of Manila's national police headquarters. The escape, which clearly had inside help, provoked outrage in American and Australian counterterrorism circles and severely embarrassed Arroyo.

Two weeks later, several hundred soldiers seized a commercial complex in a 19-hour mutiny, accusing senior military officials of selling arms to the rebels and staging the recent bombings to encourage American support. Arroyo called the rebellion an attempted coup, but the participants claimed that they were only trying to publicize legitimate grievances.

The al-Ghozi escape, the mutiny, and subsequent attempts to capitalize on allegations of corruption within Arroyo's family appear to be coordinated moves aimed at undermining the Philippine administration and its generally pro-U.S. policies. Arroyo is running in the 2004 election, and opposition figures still consider her a leading contender. Several other candidates are prominent allies of Joseph Estrada, Arroyo's spectacularly inept predecessor. Estrada built his successful campaign around quasi-populist demagoguery, rallying discontent with the existing political order without offering any practical alternative. His administration had few definable policies beyond the pursuit of self-interest, and it oversaw a precipitous decline in political, economic, and security conditions, particularly on Mindanao. There is no shortage of grounds on which to criticize Arroyo's administration, but if her successor adopts the Estrada model, the consequences -- for Mindanao, for the Philippines, and for the struggle against terrorism in Southeast Asia -- will be severe.

TREATING CAUSES, NOT SYMPTOMS

The situation in the Philippines is not an international crisis demanding immediate intervention. But if it is ignored or subjected to simplistic short-term solutions, it could easily become one. Discussions of a constructive U.S. role typically focus on promoting security and development, but this approach fails to recognize a simple truth: the traditional prerogatives of power in the southern Philippines are fundamentally incompatible with either. A thin veneer of democratic institutions covers a society that remains essentially feudal, conforming less to democratic ideals than to the style of the datus, the warrior-chiefs of old. Leadership is personal and paternalistic and functions largely above the law; power flows from guns and money.

President Bush has lauded Arroyo's commitment to bringing terrorists to justice. His praise is somewhat justified, but terrorism and banditry cannot really be controlled until the members of the political and military elite who cooperate with terrorists and turn the powers of the state to their own ends are brought to justice as well. The Philippine government has the capacity to do so -- it controls the money, the justice system, and the armed forces -- but it lacks the will. Manila's elites seem reluctant to start a trend that might eventually result in restrictions on their own power.

Military action alone is not sufficient as a strategy. There is no central terrorist cell or evil genius in Mindanao to provide a discrete target for American action. In the face of overwhelming force guerrillas simply disperse and take refuge; if one leader is removed, several others emerge. Military force is nonetheless a necessary component of any solution, because security is a prerequisite for progress in other spheres of life. Development aid is necessary as well: Mindanao's enduring poverty is an effective incubator for violence. Neither military nor development aid will succeed, though, until the problems of collusion and corruption are decisively addressed.

Washington cannot root out corruption in the Philippines. The Philippines' desperate need for U.S. aid, however, could provide an incentive for reform. U.S. policymakers must make clear, accordingly, that the United States will discontinue aid if Manila does not take sustained, aggressive action against the abuse of power.

Such demands might draw protest from Manila's political elite, but, if presented effectively, they would gain considerable sympathy among most of the population. There is a growing constituency for change in the Philippines. Public discontent is high, focused on a governing class that has traditionally functioned above the law. Issues that for decades had only been discussed in private -- such as cooperation between government officials and terrorist leaders -- have finally entered public debate. Such discontent is a powerful and unharnessed force. With effective leadership, it could bring great benefits; exploited by self-interested demagogues, it could do great damage. Washington cannot lead a movement to reform the Philippine system of justice, but it can at least align itself with the right side.

ACTING LOCALLY

Applying the simplistic terms of the war on terror to the fight against the Philippines' Islamic extremists obscures the enormous complexity of the situation. But continued fighting on Mindanao could indeed generate the kind of chaos that terrorists are apt to exploit, channeling the anger and lawlessness of a centuries-old ethnic and political conflict to their own ends.

For U.S. policymakers, therefore, Mindanao is both an object lesson and a test case. As open sponsors of terrorism fall to political pressure or military action, the focus of Washington's efforts will shift to terrorist groups operating within countries that, like the Philippines, are at least nominally friendly. Respecting the laws and political processes of foreign governments, even when seriously flawed, can be frustrating. The answer, however, is not to ignore constraints but to find ways of operating effectively within them.

The conflict in the Philippines defies the moral clarity and aggressive rhetoric that the Bush administration has favored since September 11, and recognizing that is the key to progress. In the end, only the Philippine government can bring peace. If negotiations are unaccompanied by real change and Mindanao returns to the status quo, as in past attempts to secure an end to violence, the rebellion will surely resume. At best, the United States can help suppress the rebels militarily while encouraging negotiations and boosting Manila's political will to achieve the meaningful reform necessary for lasting peace. Such a strategy will not assure success, but neither will it make the conflict worse. Moreover, it is the only course available, since the conflict in the southern Philippines is not some nefarious external conspiracy or a clash of civilizations but the internal problem of an allied sovereign state.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

This cannot be accidental: 8 times his name is misspelled as Michael "Meriing", then 4 times spelled correctly as "Meiring", followed by a final "Mering." Information management 101 with connivance of the Manila Times writers or [non]editors.

So, apparently, it's the NSA that's been blowing up things all over the world, then blaming it on the designated villain du jour.

If Michael Meriing was just another treasure hunter, why did top US security officials scramble to take him out of Davao City and airlift him to the United States?

In an exclusive interview with The Manila Times, Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials yesterday admitted that officials from the US National Security Council, which falls under the State Department, flew Meriing from Davao to Manila, for treatment of serious wounds suffered during an explosion in his Evergreen Hotel suite on May 16.

But one of Meriing's closest friends, an American, claimed the surgeon-treasure hunter had been flown to his family in San Diego, California. The American source, a former Peace Corps worker, said he stayed with Meriing until the day he left the Philippines, "on an unmanifested flight."

The same source told The Times that Meriing's escorts came from the US National Security Agency, which falls under that country's Department of Defense. The NSA, according to official US Web sites, "coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect US information systems and produce foreign intelligence information."

The American’s present location remains unknown, Cueto added. Calingasan, he said, quoted US officials as saying Meriing was still in Manila.

Although Davao reports initially said Federal Bureau of Investigation officials rushed to Meriing’s side after the blast, BI officials claimed the men were actually from the USNSC.

According to Calingasan, Meriing was being investigated by Davao police for his possible link to a series of bombings in Mindanao when the USNSC entered the picture.

But Cueto stressed that the police investigation later showed, "There was no direct evidence nor any conclusive finding linking him (Meiring) to the bombing or to any terrorist activities."

He described the incident as a simple police case, saying the treasure hunter had no derogatory records nor had violated any immigration laws.

"He has not overstayed and all his travel paper are in order. The BI has no basis questioning or detaining him," Cueto pointed out.

Explosives

Cueto said BI records show Meiring has not yet left the country.

But Meiring's friend told The Times the American was taken out of the country, just two days after being admitted at the Makati Medical Center.

Both of the American's legs were were amputated at the knee because of irreparable compound fractures. He suffered 1st to 3rd degree burns to 40 percent of his body.

Investigators told The Times the blast was caused by sparks igniting yellow powder and a substance called Super Bristal 2000, a non-explosive demolition catalyst. Police were preparing charges against Meiring for illegal possession of explosives and arson.

But the investigation has come up to a stone wall. One intelligence source told this writer, "Even with what we know — the kind of thing that would normally implicate him (Mering) — everything is still inconclusive. We can't prove that he actually had explosives in his room and we can't prove that he accidentally ignited them. But we do know that he had possession of explosives at one point. That we do know."